Oxytocin and Trust

In today's issue of Nature, Swiss researchers report that when experimental subjects inhaled oxytocin, a naturally-occuring hormone in humans, they engaged in behaviors suggesting that they were more trusting of strangers than those who were not exposed to inhaled oxytocin.  See here, here, and here.

Here's an excerpt from the first NYT article above:

In the study, the participants played an investment game with anonymous partners. Those who were given oxytocin invested more money with the partners than did those who did not receive the hormone, the researchers found.

Dr. Ernst Fehr, a professor of economics at the University of Zurich and the senior author of the paper, said, "Most experts were very pessimistic" that the study would find anything of significance.

But he said that the clear results should "induce a new wave of oxytocin research in humans."

"I have the hope that this research will lead to clinical applications in psychiatric disorders that are associated with a lack of trust," he said.

Neuroscientists who were not involved in the study said any hopes for new treatments or fears of abuse of the hormone were premature.

"One always wants to see something like this replicated, and we understand very little about how this oxytocin system works," said Dr. Antonio Damasio, a professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal. "But this is a very elegant, simple and plausible finding, and is significant because it joins cognitive processes to an underlying biological regulation."

While the research raises the possibility of trust-inducing potions and sprays, this seems unlikely in the near future:

The prospect of used-car dealerships infusing the air with oxytocin to increase sales is also far-fetched, Dr. Fehr said. "The half-life of oxytocin in the air (in a spray) is just two or three minutes," he said. "Thus you would have to administer a permanent rainfall of it. This looks impossible to me."

Comments

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I think that there's a danger that people will turn to oxytocin to give them the feelings of peace that they should receive from interacting with other people. It would be a tragedy if we used oxytocin as a drug to replace human connection.